


The Sweetest Taboo

by prettyboyporter



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 23:42:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettyboyporter/pseuds/prettyboyporter
Summary: “Max, Jesus Christ you’re gonna get all my hairbrush all gingery now.”She kept brushing anyway and turned to face him. “Whenever I’ve seen you and Steve talk, it’s like. It’s like it’s not talking at all. It’s like you’re both flirting.”Something hot and humiliated welled up in his chest. His stomach dropped low. He opened his mouth to refute her or insult her, to sayanythingbut found it dry.She placed her hand on the bed with his brush clutched in it and leaned over toward him. “It’s okay Billy. I’m not mad or anything.” She shrugged. “You seem happier when you’re with him and like you’re not the same asshole you used to be. So go ahead. Flirt with him. He seems to really like it.”





	The Sweetest Taboo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flippyspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/gifts).

> Happy VERY belated bday to flippyspoon <3

Billy shivered under his sweatshirt on what felt like the eight hundredth day of winter and dug out his battered copy of The Outsiders. Perched at the library’s front desk, he slid on his new glasses. He could probably recite most of the dialogue verbatim at this point, and he felt a mild pang of guilt at the thought of the small pile of unread books in his backpack -- but this book just felt like wrapping up in a cozy blanket. 

_Whatever it is, if it brings you peace or comfort and doesn’t bring you bodily harm_, Doc Owens had said Tuesday during Billy’s weekly follow-up visit, _then do it._

His fingers absently touched the material of his sweatshirt over his chest and even through the thick material, he could feel the faint bumps of the gnarled scar underneath. His eyes moved along the page as sweet, preppy Cherry Valance rejected Dally’s Coke. _Get lost, hood!_. 

Billy huffed a laugh. “Your loss sweetheart,” he said down to the book.

A book slid along the counter and stopped next to his own. He looked up to find Robin Buckley looking at him from under a giant fuzzy hat that covered most of her head, but those eyes and freckles were unmistakable. 

“How’s it goin Buckley,” he said as she wrote her name on the checkout card in messy printing. 

“Peachy, thanks.” She slid the card over and Billy jammed down the due date stamp on it and on the slip inside the cover and slapped the cover closed. 

“_Handmaid’s Tale_, again huh? Feeling dystopian today?” He filed the checkout card away. 

“I thought maybe reading something cheerful might help with the winter blues,” she said with a little grin, then peeked over at his book. “_Outsiders_. Really, Bills? Didn’t get enough of it in McCarthy’s class?” 

Billy shrugged a shoulder. “If it’s good, it’s good, yknow?” 

“I thought you were gonna start _Clockwork_.”

“Nah. I mean yeah I still wanna read it, but like.” He swiped a hand over his mouth and looked at her face. “Wasn’t really in the right mindset.”

She regarded him for a second, her expression soft now. He’d told Steve that it was okay if she knew about the nightmares. About the panic attacks. A couple months had passed of talking to her quietly over books at the library’s desk, over videos at her counter, joking with her about all the local dipshits and arguing over books and films. 

Her eyes were blue -- close in color to Billy’s own shade. Something between that, her freckles, the writing on her Converse and her black fingernails made him feel that if she knew about the dark shadows in his life, that she would handle it gently. 

And when he looked at her, he knew she could read his face. 

“_Clockwork_ movie night is a standing date, my friend. Whenever you’re ready.” She waved her hand, then jammed her book into her bag. “Oh yeah. I brought something for you. Thought of you when I saw it.” She plopped down a clear VHS case with the Family Video logo on it. 

He picked it up and looked at the title. “Ah, cool -- you remembered. _A Room with a View_. Haven’t seen it yet.” 

“You seemed to be pretty taken with the book at Steve’s last month.” 

He shifted his weight and fondled the corner of his book. “Sometimes books are easier than the other bullshit.” 

Music and movies at Steve’s could hardly be considered _bullshit_ but with _everyone_ there it had felt both _good_ and _overwhelming_ because in one blink he was present and fucking around, having fun, and in the next images flashed in his mind -- he’d blinked and there he was at the mall, about to die, and suddenly he was blind with panic. When he felt the fear creeping up his throat hot and putrid, before it could leave him shaking and crying, he slipped away to Mr. Harrington’s study with his paperback of _A Room with a View_ just to have a moment to center himself. Let the panic settle in his chest before he fell back in with everyone. 

“It’s fine, Bills. I get it. But you’ll like the movie. Give it a watch and bring it back tomorrow.” She looked down at the video then back up to Billy’s face. “Steve’s working.” 

“Yeah?” Billy glanced over at the card catalogue like looking at something so bland and ordinary might make the blush stop staining his cheeks. 

“Yeah. Go say hi. He misses you.” 

Billy blinked. “I talked to him on the phone this morning. And I just saw him two days ago.” 

She started backing up toward the exit. “Thought you were smart, Billy. _Lo siento_.” 

“The fuck are you sorry for? Of _course_ I’m smart,” Billy hissed as quietly as he could. 

She gave him a cute little wave. 

He flipped her off. 

**~*~**

Billy tugged down the rearview mirror to check his hair one last time. He adjusted his earring -- a dangling silver feather that Max gave him for his birthday -- and added a _dab_ of cherry lip balm to his lips. Not quite the same swagger as before. The mindflayer left him depleted physically and it was another aspect of how shit was different now. Scarred and smaller. Maybe it wasn’t the same, but when he checked his reflection, tonight he felt _pretty good_. 

This part was familiar -- this rabbit-fast beat of his heart when he saw Steve. After a year and a half of it, it was just a part of who he was -- dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and someone who got revved up around Steve Harrington. But then when Billy tugged on the door and the bell sounded his entrance, Steve looked over and there it was.

That _smile_ \-- the smile he gave Billy all sunshiney and warm. The pink on his cheeks. The change in his demeanor. _That_ was new and intoxicating. Made Billy feel more light-headed than any liquor he’d ever tasted.

“Hey,” Steve said. He dropped the cassette he was trying to put back in its case. He reached down to the floor and picked it up but then dropped it once more as his eyes snapped back up to Billy’s face. 

“Jesus Christ,” Robin muttered from somewhere in the shelves. 

Billy approached the counter and placed the movie on it -- slid it over to Steve. 

“Oh yeah. Robin brought that to you, right? Was it any good?” He asked as he checked it back in.

“Yeah. I liked it.” 

“What was it about?” 

“Two attractive people who fall in love in Italy at the turn of the century. They go home, there’s drama, they figure shit out and then just decide to fuck social norms in order to be together.” 

“Huh. Sounds, uhm-”

“You wouldn’t like it, pretty boy.”

Steve laughed and leaned closer. “Nah. Probably not. Dramas and history are not really my thing.” He licked his lower lip and lifted his eyes to Billy’s -- so close. Billy could see flecks of green of Steve’s irises. “Do you, uhm. Wanna come over tonight?” He asked quietly -- nearly whispering. “I’m done in an hour. I can grab us a pizza and a movie?” 

Billy felt his eyes lingering too long on Steve’s lips and found that he’d leaned forward, too, delirious with the thought of what it would be like to feel Steve’s lips against his own. He tried to pull back and blink his eyes around the shelves as if that could cancel out how close he’d just come to _kissing Steve Harrington in the middle of a fucking video store_. “Sure. I’ll grab a six pack.” 

“Okay then. See you later.” 

“Yeah. See you in an hour.” 

Billy stood and looked at Steve’s hair. At the little cluster of moles on his face. At the swell of his lips. 

Steve looked right back at Billy, his eyes traveling over Billy’s face.

Long moments passed. 

Billy heard a rattle to his left and a _crunchcrunchcrunch_. 

He looked over and Robin had one hip leaned against the counter, tossing Reese’s Pieces into her mouth from a movie-theater sized box. “Don’t mind me. Keep saying goodbye to each other. Please. Continue.” She gestured between them and popped more candy in her mouth. 

Billy pushed back from the counter. “Adios, pretty boy.” 

“Later Billy.”

He glanced back after he exited the door to see Robin leaning over the counter and pinching Steve’s cheek. 

**~*~**

It turned out that Neil had been one of the flayed. 

A few people expressed condolences about it but Billy had been in the hospital recovering from his massive injuries when the funeral and wake was held so he didn’t have to deal with any of that bullshit. He did stop by once to spit on Neil’s grave, though, and that was nice. 

He came home from the video store and left the door to his room open as he got ready -- something he did more and more after he’d been released from the hospital. Sometimes Susan would poke her head in and offer Billy a cup of coffee or a snack or ask if he wanted to come out and watch _Dynasty_ or _Cagney & Lacey_, or Max might pop in and rifle through his cassettes or just slam down on his bed and launch into a tirade about Lucas or some dickwad at school or homework. 

None of these things really bothered him, so. He let Max and Susan _in_. He hit play on his boombox. Heavy guitar riffs and Rob Halford’s voice cut through the silence, and Billy surveyed his closet to _You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’_. 

All of his clothes were just a _little_ baggy on him now. His muscle mass deteriorated during his recovery -- something he’d been slowly working to try and regain, but Doc Owens was a real fucking stickler when it came to how often Billy should be lifting. 

Plus he had these new glasses that he didn’t wear half of the time because he felt like a four-eyed freak, but he absolutely needed them when he was reading or even watching TV now. Some shit to do with the mindflayer affecting his vision that he didn’t fully understand and neither did Doc Owens, really, but he still kept the glasses on him even though he couldn’t stand wearing them. They were black, clunky rectangles and Robin fucking _loved_ them for some reason -- she’d pull them off of his face and put them on and launch into a tirade about Metallica that didn’t sound like Billy _at all_.

He looked over a few of his button-downs. Months ago, he’d pick one to go with his jeans and leave it unbuttoned down to his navel, but with his intense scarring, he would rather gouge his eyes out with Max’s skateboard than to think of the pitying looks on people’s faces if and when they saw his gnarled sets of scars. 

A few henleys, some sweatshirts, and tees hung there as well. He went for a Led Zeppelin tee to wear under a blue button-down to tuck into jeans that still fit maybe not _quite_ as snug as he’d like but tight enough for him to tilt his chin up and grin at his reflection.

A cursory check in the mirror showed that he didn’t need to fuck with his hair very much -- just a few pumps of spray. A dab of cologne at his neck. 

“Got a date?” 

Billy looked in the mirror and he saw Max in the reflection leaning against the doorway. “Nah. Just goin over Steve’s.” 

She came in, plopped down on his bed, picked up the brush from his nightstand and started to run it through the ends of her hair, tugging it through snarls. “Well you _look_ like you’re getting ready for a date.” 

“Max, Jesus Christ you’re gonna get all my hairbrush all gingery now.” 

She kept brushing anyway and turned to face him. “Whenever I’ve seen you and Steve talk, it’s like. It’s like it’s not talking at all. It’s like you’re both flirting.” 

Something hot and humiliated welled up in his chest. His stomach dropped low. He opened his mouth to refute her or insult her, to say _anything_ but found it dry. 

She placed her hand on the bed with his brush clutched in it and leaned over toward him. “It’s okay Billy. I’m not mad or anything.” She shrugged. “You seem happier when you’re with him and like you’re not the same asshole you used to be. So go ahead. Flirt with him. He seems to really like it.” 

He remembered the first time he met her in San Diego and that feeling of _loathing_ \-- deep and angry and venomous. That feeling that took years to wash away and totally melted after Neil’s death. 

Now he looked at her now and saw nothing but a good kid wishing him well. Still a little shit, but really. A good kid. 

He reached out and wiped a hand down the front of her face. She broke out in a giggle. “You dick! I’m going over Lucas’s in a minute and you fucked up my hair!” 

He snatched the brush from her fingers. “Cmon then. Lemme braid your hair.” 

She turned away from him without a word, and he set to work, running his brush through her cascading red hair. 

**~*~**

Steve sat _right_ next to Billy on the sofa. 

The Harringtons had a _huge_ sofa, long and spacious for entertaining guests -- Billy could just envision all of the waspy middle-aged men and their wives wives who’d eaten shrimp cocktail and sipped glasses of red on this piece of furniture -- but this seemed to be Steve’s favorite spot, cozied right next to Billy regardless of if there were fifteen people there or if it was just the two of them. 

Steve’s knee and shoulder touched Billy’s. He smelled like Ralph Lauren and cigarettes and a little like beer. He looked like each lock of brown hair was sculpted into place, his green polo shirt tucked carefully into his jeans. His face was freshly shaven.

_Look kids, Big Ben, Parliament_ Clark Griswold said on the TV, and Steve laughed and shifted even closer. 

Billy looked over Steve’s shoulder at the expanse of open sofa -- the empty space Steve could’ve taken. 

Sometimes Steve would bring candy from the video store to Billy at the library. He’d look over the books on the display, pick one up, open the cover, and sneak glances up at Billy when he thought Billy wasn’t looking. He’d lean too far over the counter to whisper to Billy -- his breath tickling the little hairs of Billy’s neck. Sometimes he lifted weights with Billy or played basketball with him before the snow fell to help him rebuild his endurance. Showed him how to go _snowshoeing_ in the forest behind his house. Sometimes Steve would slap a hand to Billy’s shoulder and let his hand slide down his back and there it stayed for too long -- a touch that Billy would dream about in the darkness of his bedroom, replaying it behind closed eyelids, chasing a phantom sensation -- the hairs on his neck and the hand on his back.

Billy took that sum and added the vast expanse of empty sofa and the knee and the shoulder -- _all of it_ fueled Billy to do it. He reached up and touched Steve’s hair -- tucked a loose lock behind Steve’s ear. He let his fingers trail over the soft skin of Steve’s ear. 

Steve stilled -- his eyes shifting from the TV to Billy’s legs -- then he smiled, a pink flush growing up his neck. 

Billy leaned over and kissed Steve’s cheek. 

Steve placed his arm around Billy’s shoulders and pulled Billy in -- took his lips in a kiss. 

_European Vacation_ played forgotten in the background as Billy slid his fingers into the long hair at the back of Steve’s neck -- toyed with it between his fingers and he touched his tongue to Steve’s lips and when Steve parted his lips for him -- Steve’s tongue tangling with Billy’s -- the whole world narrowed to this. Nothing existed outside of this sofa, Steve’s hands that found their way over Billy’s arms, roaming over his chest, over hidden scars, down his stomach to rest on his thighs, _squeezing_ as Steve leaned forward and pressed Billy against the sofa’s back. 

Billy thought that if he died like that -- with Steve Harrington’s tongue in his mouth and Steve’s hands on his thighs -- that maybe _this_ was actually how he’d like to go out. He’d thought being taken out by a clawed, tentacled monster was a fucking _metal_ way to die but this -- with Steve’s hand cradling his jaw and Steve pressing little kisses to Billy’s chin and cheek and forehead -- this could be the most _poetic_ way. 

Killed by sweetness. 

Steve took the lead -- held Billy’s wrists, controlled the pace and the angle and Billy was happy to turn it all over. Let Steve make the choices and kiss Billy into the Elysian Fields, blissed out and burning. 

“Wanna go for a swim?” Steve asked as he pressed lazy kisses to Billy’s neck. 

“Are you shitting me? It’s fucking _Februrary_.” 

Steve picked up Billy’s right hand and kissed the scars on the back. “I turned the heater on a couple hours ago. It’ll be nice and warm for us.” 

“We’ll freeze our balls off, pretty boy.” 

“I have robes. We’ll be fine. Cmon,” Steve said and pulled Billy up to his feet. 

Billy followed Steve into the kitchen where Steve stripped down to his Calvin Kleins. He popped open a wicker hamper next to the sliding glass door and pulled out two robes. 

By the time Billy had been released from Doc Owens’ care, it was sweatshirt weather and only one person had seen his scars outside of healthcare professionals -- and that person was Max. She helped Billy rub cocoa butter on the scars he couldn’t reach on his back. 

She didn’t treat him any differently and that’s what he _wanted_. 

With a nervous swoop in his stomach he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off. Shoes and jeans were next. His hand hovered over the hem of his t-shirt as he stood in his briefs. 

Standing around in his tighty whities was absolutely no sweat -- he’d walk down the streets in his undies if he could -- _as long as he could still wear a shirt_. Images flashed in his mind of what Steve’s face would be like when he saw the scars. Eyebrows wrinkled. Hand at the back of the neck followed by distance and stilted conversation. 

Billy thought about just leaving the t-shirt on. That would be the easiest way to avoid all of that, but he wasn’t feeling much like delaying the inevitable. 

He tugged the shirt over his head and let it fall to the floor. 

Steve looked. His eyes roamed over Billy’s abdomen, expression neutral, but then went right back up to Billy’s face and he held out a robe and a towel. “It won’t be that bad. Once we’re in the water, it’ll be fine. Don’t be a baby.” 

“Hold on,” Billy said as he grabbed the robe and slid it over his shoulders. Hen ran a hand over the largest of the scars. “This shit doesn’t bother you?” 

Steve looked down and pursed his lips -- shrugged a shoulder. “I dunno. Makes you look even more like a tough headbanger.” 

“And what does a pretty boy like you know about tough headbangers?” 

Steve wrapped his arms around Billy’s waist. “I know they like loud rock and dangly earrings and have goofy skull tattoos.” 

Steve started rocking back and forth with Billy, just slightly. Just enough to make Billy feel a little _soft_. “You’re not wrong.”

“So, would you, my _sexy_ headbanger, wanna go swimming? Promise I’ll play some Metallica, or whatever Whitesnake-RATT-Motley Crue kinda shit you like.”

“Ugh you’re so fucking _lame_,” Billy said, and pressed a kiss to Steve’s lips. 

**~*~**

Billy felt weightless in the water -- floated on his back as the surface steamed around him. He hadn’t been in a pool since July. It felt good, to launch himself from one end and swim to the other, do a flip turn, practice a forward crawl even if it was in a tighter space than the public pool. 

He goofed off with Steve, too, chasing him. Dunking him. Eventually, though, Steve ended up with his back to the ledge and he tugged Billy in -- held him from behind. He put his chin on Billy’s shoulder after kissing his neck and squeezed him close. 

Billy laced his fingers through Steve’s over his chest. And maybe that was the best feeling Billy had had since July. Feeling both weightless and contained. Like he was floating still -- it almost reminded him of a panic attack, feeling like he was floating aimlessly forever in a dark place, no sense of where he’d end up -- but Steve was there to hold him down now. To pull him back into himself. 

“Wanna stay with me tonight?” Steve asked as he kissed Billy’s shoulder. He wrapped his legs around Billy’s waist -- hooked his ankles under Billy’s navel and Billy felt anchored. _Safe_.

Billy wrapped a hand around Steve’s right ankle. And now Billy was certain that from here on out, if Steve asked something of Billy, he would say yes. “Yeah, pretty boy. Yeah I do.” 

**~*~**

“Hello?” Max answered the phone. 

“I won’t be home tonight, shitbird. So don’t wait up.” 

A few silent beats passed before an eruption of giggles came through the other end of the line. 

“Ha fuckin ha.”

“Billy?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope Steve doesn’t find out that you fart in your sleep.”

“Nothin like your hot garbage farts, dingleberry.” 

“Billy!”

“What!”

“I hope you have fun. Seriously.”

Billy peeked through the open bathroom door. Steve was frowning at his reflection and furiously trying to comb his wet hair. “Yeah. I will, Max. Night, kid.”

“Night.”

**~*~**

When Billy woke that night for the first time with a gasp and a scream, Steve was there to sleepily drape an arm and a leg over Billy and kiss him and whisper _you’re okay baby_ against his cheek. 

When Billy woke for the second time, Steve was snoring softly with a hand on Billy’s stomach. 

And when Billy woke for the third time, it was to the smell of coffee and the sight of Steve in a robe with a box of cereal, backlit by the morning sun. 

Billy smelled faintly like Polo all day at the library. 

Robin placed _A Handmaid’s Tale_ back on the counter. A little wrinkle formed between her eyebrows. “Is that Steve’s sweater?”

He thought about how maybe, maybe Cherry Valance should’ve given Dallas Winston a chance. “Yep. It is.” 

Robin smiled. “Fucking. _Finally_. Now will you both _please_ go on a double date with me and Becky Frankson?”

“We’ll never get Steve to agree to the fucking Hidden Fortress at that filmhouse in Indianapolis even if it is a midnight showing, and you know it, Buckley.”

She smiled up at him. “Maybe if you talked him into it, he would.” 

“Yeah. Maybe.”

She looked around, reached slowly across the counter and placed her hand on his, squeezed it once, and pulled it back. “Proud of you, Bills.” 

Billy felt a little whiplash thinking about cheating death to come back and date fucking Steve Harrington and find a true sibling in Max and have Robin’s friendship too. He fought the tears, but they came anyway. “Thanks, Buckley.”

**Author's Note:**

> prettyboyporter on tumblr


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